


where do we draw the line

by samisaywhat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memories, Mentions of past Kate/Derek, POV Derek, Pining, Song Lyrics, but barely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 14:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samisaywhat/pseuds/samisaywhat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek knows that he’s never been able to keep anything he’s wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where do we draw the line

**Author's Note:**

> "Where Do We Draw the Line" by Poets of the Fall always makes me think of Derek, so I finally sat down and wrote a fic with it. I don't favor writing in Derek's POV (not my comfort zone), but I figured it'd be a good challenge. I like to think of Derek as a lost character that's more scared than he lets on.  
> 

* * *

_on your palms an endless wonder_  
 _the lines that speak the truth without a sound_  
 _and in your eyes awaits the tireless hunger_  
 _already looks for prey to run down_  
 _so why do we keep up this charade_  
 _and how to we tell apart the time to leave from the time to wait_  


_what does tomorrow want from me_  
 _what does it matter what I see_  
 _if it can't be my design_  
 _tell me where do we draw the line_  

* * *

Derek wants. He dreams of things he’d like to touch, to taste. And he knows it’s wrong, he knows that he’s never been able to keep anything he’s wanted. That doesn’t stop the wanting, though. It stops him from taking.

Derek thinks he knows the word for what he considers Stiles. He’s heard it before during bedtime stories when Laura still teased him for just about everything. There was a word, no, a title that was spoken of with such reverence that Derek found himself dreaming about finding such a person. He never got to ask his Mother if any of those stories were _true_ , and he refuses to ask Peter. Even though Peter obviously knows. He’s seen the way Derek looks at Stiles. Even he can see how rare someone like Stiles is. Derek sees it and he tries to hate it, but only becomes obsessed, his Mother’s voice like a whisper in his head. The title that she spoke of like a prayer.

Instead, Derek thinks of Stiles as something more tangible. He thinks of the color of his skin and the moles that dot along it. He thinks about how breakable Stiles is. How despite all weakness, he always runs ahead and faces danger without reservation. Not without fear. Derek knows that Stiles is scared of everything that happens around them. He has smelt the fear on him—has caused it quite a few times. He remembers that night spent in water and hoping not to drown. Stiles had been terrified, but he never left even though he could have gotten away when the Kanima paralyzed Derek. He could have left Derek for dead.

Derek thinks that maybe it wouldn’t have such a bad idea.

He thinks of Stiles, whose scent is sharp and spiced. It reminds him of autumn, colored but ultimately decayed. Stiles never reminds Derek of death though. Only the possibility of it. Stiles has eyes that are intensely dark when challenged, but Derek has seen them glow as warm as summer. Derek thinks that he could be blinded should he stare too long so he never allows himself the pleasure. He takes in the small glimpses of Stiles instead. Stiles, whose inner darkness is cold and desolate, so well hidden that no one takes notice. Derek wants to tell him that it doesn’t need to be that way. Useless as he is, Derek knows how to take pain. And Stiles? Perhaps he could share that light, that color with someone as broken and defeated as Derek.

Stiles is tangible in the same way anger is. But Stiles is also the opposite of anger, and Derek thinks about what that could mean for him. Stiles is trust and loyalty. Derek knows that it is not he who Stiles pledges that loyalty to, but oh, how he’d like to be.

But Derek also knows that loss is tangible. It sits deep in his heart, anchored to his soul. It runs red through his fingertips and under his claws. On every single thing he touches.

Derek understands one absolute truth. Death.

* * *

_the dance of flames and shadows in the street_  
 _make poetry nobody’s ever heard_  
 _the weight of loneliness stands on your feet_  
 _the cage already there around the bird_  
 _so why don’t we join the masquerade_  
 _before it falls apart, before our love becomes insatiate_

_what does tomorrow want from me_  
 _what does it matter what I see_  
 _if I can’t choose my own design  
_ _tell me where do we draw the line_

* * *

Laura was beautiful and strong, much like their Mother. She was sharp-tongued, but never unnecessarily cruel. Derek remembers her more than anyone else, and in a way, he remembers Talia through her.

Talia Hale. No one had ever seen an alpha like their Mother. She was spoken of in a similar fashion one speaks of a deity. Talia was not just the leader of wolves; she was one of them. Laura had learned everything from Talia, but not enough to bear the deaths of the pack.

Derek remembers that night too vividly, yet not vivid enough. The fire was not the first thing he noticed. He hadn’t even made it anywhere near the house when he felt it. He didn’t even know about the fire. But he could feel the bonds ripping away from within him. He never knew it was so painful to lose a pack member. They told him about it all the time. It was like losing a limb. Like losing an arm.

The red had already bled into Laura’s eyes by the time Derek found her. She was kneeling just outside of the preserve, her back to the flames. Her body was drawn taut and painful, and Derek knew exactly what that pain meant. Talia was dead, and now Laura was the Alpha. Now Laura could feel each member of her pack slowly dying within a fire that never seemed to actually die itself.

The fire fighters dragged Peter out. Derek couldn’t even recognize him. His face was black with soot and burned and terrifying. Derek couldn’t look at him for too long without wanting to run. Laura was finally there beside of him, holding his arm with a strength that wasn’t meant to be her own. Not yet. She looked at Peter with relief and hope. Peter would survive, at least. But the shreds of clothing clutched in his hands served as a reminder for what he had seen. And they knew that Peter would never be the same.

It rained on the day of the funeral. Derek couldn’t even muster up the strength to be upset. He accepted it. Laura just fixed his tie and handed him an umbrella. She hadn’t shed a single tear since the fire. She looked like she wanted to, but fought against those emotions. Derek couldn’t cry. He felt empty. He felt alone. Everything felt wrong and he kept praying to just wake up because they couldn’t be dead. He refused to believe it.

Denial never lasts long.

It was weird to attend a funeral that none of your family attended. There wasn’t any shortage of people though. Derek didn’t know 90% of the people that showed up. He barely even registered their names. He never did well with Humans anyway. He had always seperated himself from them. Laura was better. She was always better at talking.

There was one person there that Derek did know. He could smell her the moment she walked into the cemetery. The caskets had barely gone down, and Derek suddenly _knew_. He looked up and locked eyes with her. Kate Argent. She tilted her head to the side; blonde curls bouncing with the movement. Derek could hear over the crowd of people the way she chuckled. The smile that split across her face was predatory and gleeful and Derek knew. All those caskets, all of them his fault.

He contemplated jumping in after one of them.

Laura never knew. She didn’t even notice Kate. Derek never told her. He wanted to. He just wanted to tell someone. For what, he doesn’t know. To have Laura yell at him? Tell him how much of an idiot he was for trusting someone like Kate? Someone that had given Derek all of her attention and made him feel loved? Important? He thought Kate was perfect, but anyone could see how weird it was for someone like her to take interest in someone like Derek.

He should have told Laura. He should have taken whatever Laura would have given him because it would be an extra reminder of how stupid he had been. Derek just wanted the secret out before Laura died. Before Peter killed her. Because Derek had been _so stupid_. Why did he let Laura go back to Beacon Hills alone? 

He sits outside the house sometimes. It smells of smoke and death. Derek doesn’t remember what the house looked like before it burned down anymore. He barely remembers what it looked like when it was burning. He does remember the way the fire danced, and the screams of people trapped inside.

Laura had come to the house when she returned to Beacon Hills. Derek could smell her scent on some things, as if she ran her hands against the walls. It made him feel angry and calm all at once. Derek buried her close to the house for that very reason.  He was allowed to bury her with the rest of their pack in the cemetery after Scott and Stiles dug her up.

Her scent was nowhere to be found anymore. Derek looks for it sometimes. He strays into the woods and walks alone in search of it. Instead, he just finds himself at the cemetery, standing in front of her gravestone. He doesn’t cry when he finally realizes where he is. He doesn’t feel anything at all.

Stiles catches him one time, on the way there. He’s walking alone, which is strange. Derek has never seen Stiles around without his Jeep. Stiles is the one that notices him, but he doesn’t really say anything at first. He just stops in front of Derek, staring at him expectantly. As if Derek is meant to say something. Stiles always gives in first though, grinning and saying, “Playing wolf?”

Derek wants to tell Stiles that wolves aren’t like him at all. Derek is so far from it, in the same way he’s barely human. He survives like a wolf and can fight like one, but Laura was always the better wolf. She could touch without fear and run through the woods wildly but still so in control. Derek runs because he’s scared. Because he’s lonely. Derek knows there’s a word for what he appears to be. A lone wolf. It’s a Human term. But Derek isn’t a “lone wolf” by preference. He’s one by circumstance. He hates it.

Derek knows that if circumstance were different, he could just grab Stiles and _take_. He knows that Stiles thinks about it. He can smell it sometimes. At first, he believes it’s for someone else in the room, but Stiles still reeks of it when they’re alone. His eyes are trained on Derek more often than he probably even realizes, and Derek _wants_.  

* * *

_where’s the cooling wind_  
 _where’s the evergreen field_  
 _where’s my mother’s open arms_  
 _where’s my father lionheart_  
 _it’s like the suns gone down_  
 _sleeps in the hallowed ground now_  
 _with the autumn’s brown leaves_  
 _with the one who never grieves_

* * *

Scott asks Derek about his betas one night. He says, “Why did you pick them? They’re teenagers.” His voice holds so much venom and disgust that Derek wants to yell. Isaac and Boyd make themselves scarce even though Derek knows they want to know the answer as well. Erica doesn’t move. She stands next to Derek with her arms crossed over her chest and a glare on her face. Sometimes she’s like Laura.

Derek thinks about the reasons why. He picked Isaac because he was scared. He picked Erica because she was weak. He picked Boyd because he was lonely. He offered them the bite to improve their lives. He bit them because he needed the power. Derek knows that Scott can’t see the bite as anything other than a burden. Scott complains about the consequences without stopping to look at how he’s benefitted from it.

“Go home, Scott.” Derek says, because he doesn’t owe Scott anything.

After his betas have left, Derek takes a moment to really think of the reasons. He knows the real reason he picked the three of them specifically. It’s true that he wanted to give Isaac the ability to liberate himself. He wanted to give Erica the strength to overcome obstacles. He wanted to Boyd to belong.

But Derek picked Isaac, Erica, and Boyd because they all reminded him of himself. Derek picked them because he was tired of being alone and weak.

Talia had given the bite to two Humans. Derek didn’t really understand the reasons why at the time, but he thinks it was to teach the pack a lesson. Bitten werewolves were different from those that were born. They didn’t understand how to use all of their senses, or how to understand the new instinct deep within them. Talia was patient with them though, and eventually they became strong. Derek soon forgot that they weren’t in the pack from the beginning. Talia tells them then that their father was bitten, too.

He knows that Talia wanted him to be able to accept people into the pack and create a larger family than what blood or marriage could provide. But the lesson was not his to learn; it was Laura’s. It only makes sense that by the time he realizes it Erica and Boyd are gone. Isaac doesn’t leave, but he doesn’t trust Derek either. Derek can’t complain because he knows that he should have offered his own trust the day he decided to bite them.

Scott asks him again. Derek still doesn’t owe him anything, not after Gerard, but Scott doesn’t back down this time. He stands in front of the Hale house defiantly and says, “Boyd and Erica didn’t know. They were just teenagers.” He says it like Derek did it to ruin their lives. He doesn’t realize that Derek only bothers with kids like Scott and Isaac because they’re the closest to what Derek knows. Scott doesn’t bother to realize that Derek’s life was ruined when he was Scott’s age. Derek thought that maybe the bite could change his beta’s lives for the better.

He’s always wrong, but he’s starting to accept that to.

“Do you even know where they are?” Scott asks.

“No.” Derek says. And he feels cold and alone. 

* * *

_so why do we keep up this charade_  
 _and how do we tell apart the time to leave from the time to wait_

* * *

Derek doesn’t bite anyone else to replace Erica and Boyd. He knows he should, but he doesn’t really want to bite anyone ever again. Deep down, he yearns for what he once had; a large pack full of people he could trust and lean on. Derek can’t trust himself with so many people so he doesn’t listen to that want. He knows that he’s never been able to keep anything he’s wanted.

Beacon Hills is a shell of a home, just like the burnt skeleton of his house, but Derek doesn’t leave. He can’t leave Isaac, and he doesn’t know what to do with Peter. Isaac starts to attend school again, even though there isn’t much of it left. Peter starts coming up with plans to rebuild the house before it’s condemned. Derek lets him even though he’s unsure if he could ever live in that house again.

Peter rents them an apartment while the house is under construction. He never asks Derek for money, but Derek doesn’t want to know if and how Peter can pay for anything. The apartment is nice enough and furnished with two bedrooms. He lets Isaac pick a room first and ends up taking the one with the larger bed. Peter doesn’t stay with them.

Isaac tells him that he won’t be home when the last day of school rolls around. He prepares a bag with a change of clothes, and says he’s staying out with a friend. Derek already knows that it’s Scott that Isaac hangs out with all the time, but he doesn’t care enough to say anything. He just tells Isaac to take his keys and not to forget his phone like he usually does.

Later that day, Derek hears the sound of Stiles’ Jeep pulling into park outside. The car sounds like it might die any day now, but Stiles keeps fixing it up and prolonging the inevitable. Derek figures that Isaac forgot something and somehow pestered Stiles into driving him back home before the pair head to Scott’s. He doesn’t expect the knock on his door or to have Stiles push his way in when he opens it.

“You’ve been MIA for a while. Could’ve told me you got a new place. I looked like a moron showing up at your house to find it getting work done. AndPeter, _ew_.” He says as a greeting.

Derek doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. He just closes the door and watches as Stiles touches every single thing in the apartment. His scent spreads with every press of his fingers and Derek can’t help but feel happy about it.

“You could say something, you know.” Stiles suggest with a flourish of his hands.

“Something.” Derek deadpans.

“I set myself up for that one.” Stiles grins, and Derek has missed him. He avoids Stiles because what the boy draws out of Derek is a semblance of his former self. Before fire and smoke and loss. He drives Derek crazy, knows just how to make Derek angry, but never angry in the way that consumes Derek whole.

“What do you want, Stiles?” Derek says, hoping that it’ll push him away. It has the opposite affect because Stiles never does what is expected, and he just takes a few steps until he’s right in front of Derek. His scent hits Derek and Stiles must see something on his face because he chuckles.

“I wanted to see you.” Stiles says with a wide smile. Derek can tell that Stiles is scared when he throws his arms over Derek’s shoulders. He can hear the way his heart rate speeds up when Stiles brings their faces closer. And Derek could stop him, he could, but he doesn’t want to do.

So he takes a chance and lets Stiles kiss him. 

* * *

_whatever tomorrow wants from me_  
 _at least I’m here, at least I’m free_  
 _free to choose to see the signs_  
 **_this is my line_**

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry there wasn't more smooching at the end. 
> 
> Is it bad that I've already planned another fic based on another POTF song?
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr!](http://ruleandretreat.tumblr.com)


End file.
